


Long Way Home （Rey x Kylo Ren）

by Hirrient



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII：The Last Jedi （2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Absolution, Action, Aphrodisiacs, Assassin Ben Solo, Banter, Betrayal, Bickering, Conspiracy, Dark Side Rey, Espionage, F/M, Feelings, Finn as a dad!, Finn does NOT, Force Bond, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Choke, Friends to Lovers, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Light Side Ben Solo, M/M, Mutual Pining, Plot, Poe kinda ships Reylo TBH, Redemption, Resistance Member Ben Solo, Rogue Ben Solo, Romance, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, angst with happy ending, broken force bond, constant backseat driving, force meditation, force projection, force rift, frienemies, intruigue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-05 05:22:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13381041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hirrient/pseuds/Hirrient
Summary: ‘You’re impossible,’ Rey snapped.‘But still you always try,’ Ben replied.Kylo Ren turned rogue soon after the death of Snoke, fracturing the First Order and the universe along with it. Rey fights alongside old allies for the United Alliance, the last bastion of order, but she's kept a secret—That the man who’d once been Kylo Ren was inoperable. Grown into her. That cut him out and she’d loose half herself.Now the most wanted man in the universe, Ben Solo wages a bloody path in the name of atonement, assassinating First Order war criminals without mercy. When General Hux's radical militia descends upon a planet Finn calls home, Ben and Rey’s missions collide. The Alliance wants Hux alive. Ben will see him dead. And nothing is what it seems.A story of balance & dependency, loyalty & betrayal, and of finding the way back to the Light.





	1. Chapter 1

# LONG WAY HOME

 

_We thought our enemy was the First Order. We weren’t ready for what came second._

_—_ General Leia Organa

 

# Prologue

 

Rey’s X-wing broke atmosphere.

A sun was setting on this face of forgotten blue world, casting the vast oceans a shimmering gold. There were no tiny galaxies shining where shadow fell on this uninhabited planet—no cities, no lights. Anyone below would see her, however. She’d rigged the engine to trail vapour on descent. Her ship caught the last glint of light and shone, trailing like a falling star.

The last Jedi reached out into the ether below.

 _Ben Solo,_ she knew, at last. _You’re here._

 

# I

 

The universe has a memory. A shape. Bent out of form, the Force pushes it back like a rubber band snapping on skin.

The murder of a Supreme Leader leaves a vacuum to be filled, and Kylo Ren had inherited Snoke’s throne. He’d been groomed for the task his entire life, a prince from birth. Ren might have even held the colossal destabilizing empire together. Everyone had expected that. No one had factored for the Han Solo effect.

For him to steal a ship and strike out, a rogue.

The _Fracture_ had happened soon after. The First Order crumbled into a new monster—a rampantly multiplying hydra of unchecked warlords and radicalised terrorist factions. An almost post-apocalyptic pirate age. A galaxy in chaos, now for seven years.

 

‘Yet another independent hit by Kylo Ren,’ Councillor Shan seemed to almost accuse across the council table to General Leia. The Princess sat at the chair of the enormous war desk, impassive as usual under the scrutiny of the forty diplomats around her. The picture of perfect composure.

‘And?’ she said.

‘As random as usual. This time the drug baron, Estibal.’

Shan was a tall woman with a powerful form boarding masculine. She was muscled from years of physical conditioning and her mind was just as honed.

‘That hardly impinges any of our operations.’ Leia dismissed.

‘ _This_ time,’ Shan asserted pointedly. It was to the general murmured agreement of the Uniting Alliance’s war council. It certainly wasn’t unprecedented for years of Alliance strategizing to be bungled in seconds by Ren flying in and murdering someone.

‘Estibal’s connection to the First Order?’ Leia asked. There’d be one. That was the one thing common to all his hits.

‘Made big credits off pharmaceutical trials,’ Shan said. ‘First Order programs to increase aggression in soldiers.’

‘Then good riddance,’ Leia said.

But Shan’s expression warned it wasn’t so simple. ‘Since the Fracture, Estibal had spent years stabilizing the economy of a refugee planet.’

The lines in Leia’s brow deepened as she considered that. More anarchy. The universe was writhing with it.

‘We move in before anyone else can,’ she said. Everyone was in total agreement. At least for that course of action.

‘That’s not enough,’ Shan asserted, sparking the old debate that raged week in, week out. ‘Hunting down Ren—’

‘Is a waste of time,’ cut across a new voice.

The entire council turned their heads to the door and fell silent.

Rey had that effect on people these days when she strode into a room.

 _Reverence built on fear._ She could sense it thick in the room. Palpable. A faithlessness that thrived in a council of defected First Order strategists and politicians. They had learned a difference side to the Force’s power. They had good reason to fear her and perhaps it was better that way. Councillor Shan herself had commanded her own Dreadnaught before the Fracture.

She’d done unspeakable things.

She’d also once been a diplomat on her home world, before it had been subjugated into mandatory service. Now she brought invaluable resources to the Uniting Alliance.

Rey might never have learned to think and fight this way if she hadn’t first met Finn all those years ago. There were good people in bad places. Empower them, and that’s how change happened.

‘Councillor Rey is right,’ Leia said to the council. ‘Ren is already the most hunted bounty in the galaxy, our efforts would be an excessive addition. It still stands that he has never come close to targeting the Alliance since he defected.’

‘Yet he has shown to change allegiances with little warning, General,’ Shan said, and slid her eyes to Rey. ‘Some of our council believe a Sith is a Jedi’s responsibility.’

 _Sith, Jedi_. Like it was so clear cut. Black and white. Light and Dark. Like Shan didn’t know what it was to defect. Like Rey hadn’t known darkness through years of endless war. Like one slaying the other brought balance.

‘And if I felt Ben Solo was an enemy, I would act,’ Rey said. ‘But we have a far more imminent threat to focus on.’

Kylo Ren was forgotten at those words. The mood in the room shifted. Tensed. Rey had come with a warning.

‘Hux has broken through our blockade,’ she announced. ‘Order Zero took heavy hits, but still has power to hit Saaltn hard.’

Saaltn, just another war-ravage refugee planet. Self-ordained _Supreme Leader_ Hux’s Order Zero remained the largest militia to rise from the cinders of the First Order. It held truest to the original vision perhaps, though like a dog gone rabid. It was a terroristic faction with one soul mission: to purge. It had its own industry of parasitic allies to feed. Armies, looters, slavers—For seven years Hux had reeved through the galaxy, hitting worlds and leaving the carrion to be picked over—a slow dissection of survivors. There was little to gain from a planet like Saaltn, which had recently formed a parliament under the support of the Uniting Alliance. But it seemed simply that: That Saaltn had had the audacity to heal. And settled on Saaltn for the past four years, working tirelessly as though it’s medic, was Alliance Ambassador Finn.

‘What remains of the blockade?’ Leia asked.

‘Not enough to defend, though they’ll try,’ Rey said.

‘Course they will,’ Leia rolled her eyes. She couldn’t supress that reluctant smile she reserved for Poe Dameron being reliably hot headed. ‘They’ll need reinforcements immediately.’

Already the council had begun mobilizing support. Seconds ago they’d been divided. Now they co-operated like a well-oiled machine. Rey fell into her place, too, but quickly felt a hand on her shoulder.

‘You’ve done enough for now, Rey,’ Leia said quietly, knowingly.

The last Jedi was the eyes and ears to the Alliance, meditating across galaxy while all the while never moving from Head Quarters. Rey had been present—an astral consciousness— as Poe’s ships were ripped apart one by one, lives crushed and burnt. Had Leia felt it too? The general had this way about her—she could appear so war ready, so in control, and yet…

No matter how many times she saw suffering, Leia never grew hardened to it. In that way she reminded Rey of someone else.

*

 

Rey took to a secluded courtyard.

Once there had been trees here but they were long gone to the passage of time. All that remained were carefully positioned rocks and the small white pebbles raked around them in ancient ripples. The ten-thousand-year-old patterns still looked fresh, as though they’d been tended only yesterday.

Finally alone, Rey staggered and clasped the stone wall. She gasped for breath.

They’d seen worlds hit by Order Zero before. She knew what slow agony hung in the balance. Not really wanting to, she caught a flash of Finn.

He had a three-year-old tucked under each arm—his curly haired twin girls shrieked with laugher as he spun them around. His _Squirmy Worms_ , as he called them, their brown skin so unblemished, their short lives completely untouched by war. They didn’t know what was coming. They didn’t know why their father had come and woken them from a nap to hold them. But she saw Finn’s smile slip when he thought no one was watching. He cocked his head to the wind.

‘Rey?’ he called out softly. His voice, uneasy.

 

She snapped back into the courtyard, trying to gain a hold on this wild panic.

_Reach out._

She became the stillness around Head Quarters. Through the eyes of something winged she looked down on the enormous white ziggurat.

 _Be like that. Solid. Enduring_.

The Alliance assumed it had once been a Jedi temple after Rey had located its co-ordinates in the Ancient texts. She hadn’t told anyone it was Sith. Nor that at times, the two hadn’t been so indistinguishable.

‘You look bad,’ said a voice.

 Rey didn’t turn to search for an intruder. She knew she was alone. Physically, anyway.

‘ _Thanks_.’

‘You know what I mean,’ said Ben from somewhere out there in the galaxy. ‘What’s inside begins to show.’

‘I’m fine,’ she said, but knowing he was right. People got out of her way in the halls. Conversations lapsed into silence on her approach. There were shadows under her eyes that seemed to cling more and more these days.

‘Where are you, anyway?’ she asked, pushing over into his side of things. Stars warped past at light speed, wrapping the cockpit of his Ghtroc 690. The small light freighter was the exact one Rey had once restored on Jakku years and years ago, which he’d later stolen when he’d defected. That might have seemed a massive coincidence if Rey still believed there was anything coincidental about the way her and Ben Solo’s fates seemed to weave together.

It was so easy now to slip in to his consciousness. It almost felt like those big hands on the helm were her own. He had fresh blood under his nails. _Estibal’s blood_ , she presumed.

‘They brought you up for execution yet again,’ Rey said, sighing.

‘It’s useful to have a common enemy,’ he reminded her, not nearly for the first time. ‘It binds people together.’

‘You’re not our enemy.’

‘I’d kill most of the Alliance’s commanders,’ he said. ‘They suspect it. I’ll come for them eventually when their time comes. You can tell them, it’s okay. I want them to know.’

 He’d temporarily let his focus slip and the detail he’d be obscuring from her came into sudden stark notice.

‘You’re injured,’ she gasped, unprepared to be slammed by his sudden wave of pain. There was blood all over him. She saw it all now in his mind. A shot to the hip from a fairly primitive cross-bolt, barbed to tear a worse wound on removal. Which, of course, he’d already done himself. It must have happened when she’d been focused on the blockade. He’d done well to hide it from their bond as long as he had. They could hide or lie, but it took concentration. Concentration his pain had stripped away.

‘I cauterised it,’ he assured. With his lightsabre, Rey deduced. The brutality of that. But she remembered facing him in battle years ago, him slamming his fist against his own wounds. He’d never shied from inflicting pain on himself.

She finally managed to fully manifest herself in the co-pilots seat, which was harder to do whenever he was travelling light speed. She could feel the cold touch of steel now vividly. And she could hear the threatening rattle coming from the wall to her left.

‘Hyperdrive motivator? Isn’t sounding good,’ she said. Seemed his injury was only the beginning to his mortal peril.

‘Getting harder to port for parts,’ he shrugged. Shipyards were crawling with Bounty Hunters. Ben’s power was impressive, but one sith could do significantly less without a totalitarian government structure around him. Alone, he was fallible. Six months back, he’d ran into a three-hundred-year-old wookie who had a vibroblade fitted with cortosis weave. Ben hadn’t expected it. No one would have in this day and age. His lightsabre had shorted out. He’d blown up the blade with force lightning and escaped, but encounters like that were increasing. They had him scared. Porting for anything—even fuel and food—was becoming virtually impossible. They’d been keeping him in the air for months, and his supplies were dangerously low.

Rey looked up coordinates. ‘There’s an Alliance base fifteen parsecs from—’

Ben shook his head. He’d be dead in space before he begged the United Alliance for provisions. Besides, it may have been no less dangerous for him.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Then have you tried bypassing the motivator’s—’

‘I’ve bypassed bypasses at this point,’ Ben said. He was carefully calm about it, in the focused sort of way. ‘I can hold it together.’

Rey realised in that moment that he was keeping the shreds of a ship in transit through the power of the force alone. It was both impressive and concerning.

‘Headed to a world,’ Ben said. ‘I was there maybe six years back. They’ll fit me up.’

Rey wasn’t convinced. If there was a safe place, he’d have gone there sooner. There’d been a reason to stay away and now he was only desperate. The moment he ran into danger, that wound wouldn’t stay closed for long.

‘It’s not like that,’ Ben assured, sensing her thoughts with that old ease. ‘Planet’s not on the maps. Had a hunch, but, hasn’t been worth the gamble on fuel before now.’

So that was it. He was putting it all on the table, burning up the last of his fuel on unconfirmed co-ordinates.

 ‘We’ve got arguing to do, meanwhile,’ he reminded her. They always had arguing to do. ‘I was talking about killing your Alliance commanders before.’

Somehow, that now sounded like upbeat positive talk. Like he’d live through this to see another day.

Rey rolled her eyes. ‘Understand their value. The good they can still do. That they _are_ doing.’

‘Irrelevant. They don’t deserve the chance.’

‘Not even if they were sorry? If they spent an entire lifetime seeking redemption?’

Why did it feel like it wasn’t really Alliance Command they were arguing about?

The craft jumped out into real space. A planet filled up their view. Emerald continents adrift on azure.

Ben slumped back in his chair. He ran his hands down his face in relief and drew a deep breath through his nose. _That had been too close._

He didn’t immediately set up for entry. He left them floating there before this incredible view. _I know you like this,_ he channelled across their bond.

 _An understatement_ , she answered. _I love it._ It never got less beautiful. He wasn’t noticing. This was his first chance to properly take in her face. When she met his eyes, they were searching hers.

 _There’s no redemption for what the First Order did_ , he said in her head. She could feel this sudden shift; how more serious he was than his almost playful bickering before. She could feel his absoluteness—He wanted her to. It was as if now, with his life secured for another day, he could switch back from hypotheticals.

‘Defecting is nothing,’ he spoke aloud. ‘If they wanted to do the right thing by the universe they’d take themselves out of it. If they lack the honour to do that themselves, I will. I’ll hunt them down. One by one.’

 _Until I get mine, too_. He hadn’t meant that for her, but that self-loathing was sometimes too loud for her to block out. But Rey had also felt how close he’d come to his end today, and that he’d been afraid. He hadn’t wanted to die, she’d seen that. She’d felt his hunger for life. For absolution.

She looked up into his dark eyes. She could see that green thriving world reflected in them.

‘Still destroying when you could be rebuilding,’ she reminded him.

‘A sith destroys. A Jedi creates,’ he quoted. She never should have loaned him the ancient texts. ‘I have my job to do, Rey. You have yours.’

He had read them with an obsessiveness, hanging off every word, so hungry for guidance. He’d learned as she had of a time when Jedi and Sith were not separate orders. The Sith cut out the infection. The Jedi healed it. But they fought for the same universe. They coexisted in balance.

That had solidified what they’d both wondered, from the moment their minds had linked. If Snoke had truly been the one to establish their bond, his death hadn’t broken it. They both felt there was a reason.

‘What if I stood in your way,’ Rey said. ‘Between you and the Alliance.’

Ben paused. ‘We shouldn’t fight each other. That’s what the orders have been doing wrong the whole time. Let me do what has to be done.’

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I won’t.’

He sighed in frustration. A frustration they shared. He turned away and shifted the ship into motion, readying entry. Why were they always like this? Damned to be on the opposite side, yet somehow…How could opposing each other on every point feel _somehow_...

‘I won’t fight you, Rey,’ he maintained. ‘But I won’t let them turn on you, either.’

_Feel somehow so opposite from being enemies._

*

 

What had looked serene from space, was, up to a point. It was still and quiet here.

In the way a graveyard was.

Rey’s senses were dull at this distance, but the moment the Ghtroc skimmed down through the layer of clouds, Ben tensed.

‘What do you feel?’ Rey asked.

‘Nothing,’ he murmured slowly. ‘No one.’ He glanced at life scans. No signs. ‘We’d have passed through sensor cloaking by now.’

The trees suddenly dropped way into a scorched land that stretched to the horizon.

An ugly black wound.

‘There was a city here,’ Ben recalled. And that is when they encountered the first one. An enormous piles of red stones. Then, there was another, and before long these red pires amounted to hundreds. Hundreds of hundreds.

‘Mass graves,’ Rey realised, the pit of her stomach dropping. ‘What… happened here?’

‘I helped them.’ Ben’s eyes scanned the field. The red mounts completely filled their view now, rushing past. There seemed no end to whatever slaughter had happened.

‘I killed their dictator,’ he said. ‘They were thankful.’

They sat in silence, watching the graves, unable to take in the magnitude of what atrocity had taken place here.

 _They tore each other apart,_ he realised, the magnitude of it spilling across into to Rey. Ben was not surprised, exactly. He’d seen atrocities. He’d done atrocities. But Rey could feel that pain. That ever raw disappointment he’d never been able to rid himself of. Soft heart _._

_Even without trying, I destroy._

 

Eventually they came to an outpost. A single abandoned tower that had escaped destruction, enclaved in a fold of valley between two mountains where no sun reached. They touched down on the landing pad and searched inside.

Coming here hadn’t been for nothing, at least. There were rations—enough packaged protein to last Ben another six months at worst—and fuel. He loaded as much of it into the small smuggling craft as he could jam. Walking was a bad idea with his wound. Lifting was worse. By the time he was done, fresh red was blossoming down his thigh. Still he hoisted cargo by hand. He’d developed an aversion to shaping the physical world through the Force, unless his very survival mandated it. It was like he feared he’d get a taste for it again. Afraid he’d wheel off balance.

‘Why are you in such a rush,’ Rey said. It was a creepy planet, she understood that. It wasn’t a place you’d sleep easy on, but… ‘You need to rest.’ _I can stay if you—_

He shook his head, wiping sweat from his brow with a bloody hand. ‘There’s somewhere we both need to be.’

Rey took his meaning with a lurch.

‘ _Hux_?’ she twigged. ‘You’re going after Hux? Now? What—With a failing hyperdrive, half-starved— barely able to walk?’

‘I’ve been waiting years for a battle like this,’ Ben said. ‘There’ll be chaos enough to finally board his dreadnaught.’

‘No, you’ll just have _two_ sides firing on you.’

‘Not if you help me.’

‘The Alliance doesn’t want Hux killed,’ Rey said. She pointed out at the dead world. ‘The last thing we need is more division. Killing leaders doesn’t bring peace, it just makes more fractures. We both know that. This happens time and time and time again. Hux is more valuable to everyone captured alive.’

Breaking apart Order Zero was the last thing the Alliance wanted to happen. You cut out a tumour in one piece. You didn’t spread it everywhere.

‘The Alliance’d cut Hux a deal,’ Ben realised. ‘After everything he’s done.’

This kind of warfare wasn’t simple. ‘That’s not my decision,’ Rey answered.

Ben spun away, shoulders squared, muscles of his back hunched tight. He suddenly lunged and flung everything from a shelf. Glass smashed across the ground, the violence lightning-fast, but passed just as quick.

 _I’m sorry_ , he reached back to her. He clutched his hip and reclaimed control over himself. He hadn’t lost his temper like that in a long time.

Rey approached and lay her hand on his back. It was damp with the sweat of work, and hot under her fingertips. He tensed under her touch and closed his eyes. It was like he wasn’t used to it. To intimacy. He drew a deep, shaky breath.

‘Hux is mad but he’s still shrewd, Rey,’ he said in a low, carefully controlled voice. It only wavered slightly with the emotion she could feel roiling within. ‘Given the chance he’d dismantle the UA from the inside. I won’t let that happen.’

 She didn’t say anything—just kept her hand on him. She could feel his pulse raging, her own heart racing in time. When he finally spoke again, it came softer, lower. Tired. Demoralised.

‘Go. We’ll meet again soon enough.’

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, had to get this fic outta my system! It's fully written, I will be doing last minute edits and posting chapters weekly. If you enjoyed the chap I'd love to hear from you in the comments :')


	2. Chapter 2

# II

 

‘You spend too much time alone,’ Finn said to Rey on the surface of Saaltn.

‘I’m not alone,’ she said. ‘I’m watching you. All the time.’

His eyes went wide for a second. Then he laughed and shouldered her off the garden path.

The planet was on the arid side but nothing like Jakku. Saaltn was pretty, with glittering white sugar-sand and picturesque white stone villages. Thick nubbly cacti proliferated in every shape and colour imaginable. Finn was careful to catch her by the arm before she shouldered into a _Tall Spiney_ with incredible yellow flowers. Rey was sure that wasn’t its real name, but they were Finn’s favourites. This one looked a bit like a man striking a heroic pose. Unwittingly, Finn struck the same stance, wiping his brow in the heat. His skin was such a deeper brown these days and it struck Rey that he’d been living under sunlight for the first time in his life, and not on a vessel.

‘Spying on me has been real interesting I bet. These last years especially,’ he played along. ‘A wild ride of changing nappies and passing out during war meetings.’

_Speaking of spending too much time alone,_ Rey wanted to say, gently, but she didn’t. She understood it was still fresh. That it took longer than two years to mourn a wife. He’d come here to begin a life with her. To have the family he’d never known himself. It was just hard for Rey to read his pain and be able to give no solution. Story of her life in this galaxy.

‘Seriously, Rey,’ he said. ‘When are you gonna get outta Head Quarters and do actual field work? You loved that.’

He sounded mighty wistful there, himself.

‘I’m here now, aren’t I?’

‘You…’ Finn trailed, ‘In person?’ He double-took her. No one could tell the difference anymore. ‘Really?’

‘In flesh and blood.’

‘What are you thinking? It’s dangerous here!’

She grinned. ‘Got to do something about that, haven’t we?’

‘Geez Rey, how long’s it been since we stood face to face?’ He stood back and out his hands on his hips, giving her the lookover. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but— You look like shit.’

‘I’ve been told,’ she laughed. He was completely right about getting out of HQ. It was good to be here. It was _so_ good to be here. With a friend— her first friend—who knew her just as Rey. Not _The Jedi._

‘Finn,’ she started, ‘If I told you a secret—’

‘Don’t even need to ask,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

_That the man who’d once been Kylo Ren was inoperable. Grown into her. That cut him out and she’d loose half herself._

‘There’s something I may need to tell you, if the time comes,’ she said. ‘And you have to trust me.’

Finn didn’t hesitate. ‘I trust you Rey.’

*

 

She’d managed to scramble Ben’s landing on Saaltn from Alliance sensors.

He’d ported far out in uninhabited desert, and now here she was: riding through the cold night on a speeder bike, risking court-martialling to run food and water to a highly dangerous fugitive.

_Bloody enabler_ , she thought as she glanced at her scans and skimmed the horizon. _That’s what I am to you_.

She saw it—the tiny far pinprick. Red, a fire. She parked her bike and crossed the sand to his camp. The smoke smelt pleasant, but pleasantly nothing she’d ever smelt before.

‘Do you make it a habit to burn unknown plants?’ she asked.

Ben looked up at her blankly. Come wilderness, he had _no_ idea. She could feel his parched thirst in her own throat insisting relief, and his peevish resentment at his own dependence.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Wouldn’t have lasted one day alone on Jakku.’ She tossed him the canvas of rations, a medpack and a skin of water. ‘How’s your wound?’

‘It’s fine,’ he dismissed, uncorking the skin and drinking deeply. A little river escaped his lips, splashing down over his chin and throat. She traced it with her eyes down to where his loosely buttoned shirt fell open.

Quenched, he leaned back in the sand and gazed up at her, his eyes a little faded. Made sense given the lateness of the hour.

‘You’re _welcome_ ,’ she reminded him, crossing her arms over her chest. There was something distinctly _bratty_ about Ben she’d decided. The more comfortable he’d become around her, the more he’d taken favours a little too like something owed. The effects of being born a prince, she supposed. He didn’t take the hint even now. It was as though he was a million miles away.

She took a seat next to him and pulled some of his woven Tauntaun rug around her. She looked up at the sky, at the lightshow of gun-fire flashes, the shadows of Starfighters skimming past the moons. They’d been up there in orbit, waging a battle that had lasted hours.

‘They’ve brought in the big guns for this battle,’ she told him.

‘Literal cannons,’ Ben inferred, skimming the specifications from her mind. Twenty enormous laser canons that the Alliance had shipped in at lightspeed that were to be the decider between Order Zero and Saaltn’s death. Swarms of Alliance fighters were flying clever to keep those enormous warships busy while calibrators raced to completion down here on surface. No one had even noticed Rey slipping away. _Deserting_ , essentially, all because an idiot couldn’t stay away from his personal vendetta. Not that there had been anything for her to do in base but watch and wait. In the morning she’d be flying out with Ben into that mess above, because he was impossible to sway from his single-minded vengeance.

‘You’d be nervous if that was still your fleet up there,’ Rey said.

Ben shook his head, never yielding at this game. ‘I’d rip your entire defence apart with everything I had before you’d ever bring cannons online.’

She snorted. ‘You’d have tried, anyway.’

_So why isn’t Hux,_ he wondered across the bond.

Dreadnaughts simply couldn’t hit small vessels at close range. There was that old trick. As for Starfighter per Starfighter, Alliance numbers were superior. But Ben’s senses were prickling with warning, and they were hard to ignore.

It wasn’t the only thing she was finding hard to ignore. She was crisply aware of how near he was.

He pushed his hand through his dark hair and a flush of heat hit her. She loosened her cowl at first, then ripped it off, suddenly needing fresh air. She felt like she was burning up.

_Ben… do you feel—_

There was an embarrassed stoniness on his end, even as his eyes were trailing over her bare shoulders, betraying him.

She looked at the fire, at the thick hazy fragrant smoke burning off it. And realised. She seized the water skin and doused the flames, knowing it was already too late. She’d be forever remembering Saaltn for the picturesque villages and glittering sand—

And the desert herb that turned out to be a whopping aphrodisiac.

‘I’m going,’ she said.

‘Good,’ he answered, pushing himself to his feet, not estimating the danger there’d be in that. For a moment they seemed locked in at proximity, the tension palpable. She was more aware of his broadness, his strength, than she had any business being. At least more than she wanted to so obviously reveal.

He took a shallow breath. ‘You were—’

‘Right,’ she recalled. She turned and threw her leg over the speeder bike, straddling it. Even that was fraught. She felt the heat of his eyes burning over her possessively, the other side of the bond all but shutting down like a droid overloading its circuits.

_We are never speaking of this again,_ she channelled back to him _,_ and kicked the engine into life, leaving him in dust and darkness until morning.

***

 

It was difficult to be in two places at once.

It was even harder to achieve when you were taking fire in one of them. The Ghtroc took a hit and Rey slammed back into that realm of consciousness.

‘Watch it,’ she yelled and Ben wrenched them out of a tail spin and flipped them horizontal, slicing impossibly between two streams of laser fire.

‘It’s a little hard to concentrate when you’re in my head jumping all over the place,’ he said through gritted teeth.

Ungrateful as ever. Here she was, doing as he’d asked and even _then_.

‘You _wanted_ my help,’ she reminded him. ‘Do you want to get blown up or not? Stop retaliating.’

‘Just let me do it my way,’ he said.

‘Never.’

‘—Rey?’ Finn gently shook her. She came back to her focus in front of him, on the surface of Saaltn, within the Alliance base. The battle waged overhead, broadcast across the control room on large screens. ‘You zoned out there.’

‘I’m…multitasking,’ she said. It would not have helped anyone for her to reveal she was in fact helping a problem anarchist bungle another Alliance plan. She fixed seriously on Finn.

‘Call fire off Ben Solo.’

The Ghroc took another shot. Her body was freefalling for a moment, the slamming down on her tailbone. Pain ricocheted up her spine.

_Focus_. Finn was still staring at her like she’d gone mad.

‘Ren’s _shooting_ at us, Rey.’

‘Cause we’re shooting at _him_. Call them off!’

She could see Finn struggling against his every instinct. She could hear the Ghtroc’s proximity alarm piercing in the back of her head.

‘I _know_ him, Finn,’ she said, grasping his arm and trying to make him understand. ‘I know how he thinks. The force links our minds, we—’

‘Woah—’ Finn exclaimed, staggering back. ‘ _Links your minds_? You’re—What, you’re saying _Kylo Ren’s in your head?’_

The Ghtroc took another hit. _One more and shields are down_ , Ben was shouting at her. It nearly shook her out of her concentration entirely. Rey took a breath. _I can do this_ she said back to him, staring into Finn’s face.

‘Finn—’ she began. There wasn’t any time. How to explain? How to make him understand? _He won’t,_ Ben answered, unintentionally giving her the answer. Finn didn’t have to understand.

‘Yesterday I asked if you trusted me,’ she said to her oldest friend.

He stared back hard at her. Then he breathed, and opened all communications lines.

‘Command calling a ceasefire on Ren, repeat do not fire on Kylo Ren.’ He shot her back this look. Raw vulnerability.

‘I sure hope you’re right Rey,’ he said. She sensed the Starfighters pulling away from pursuit. She felt Ben’s disbelief. He was too stunned even to resent being wrong.

Until a shot blew out the last of the shields.

_That’s more like it_ , he thought, his worldview shifting back into sense.

Rey struggled to grip what was happening.

‘They’re turning back around?’

Finn already had the visual up on screen.

‘Stand down fire on Ren,’ he repeated on comms. ‘You’re violating a direct order—’ He switched lines. ‘Poe what’s—’

But there was only static coming through. Cut lines? Or something far more devastating. She could feel Finn grasping too.

_It’s been very helpful Rey_ , Ben channelled across sarcastically. _Now will you let me work?_

There came the sound of open fire. Of shouts, screams, from somewhere deeper in the base.

‘We’ve been crossed,’ Finn hissed, drawing his blaster.

Ben penetrated her thoughts. _If I’m going to stand a chance at fielding this I need you on board_. She felt his urgency. _You can’t help your friends if you’re dead_.

His logic made a sense she couldn’t fight. It shattered the last shred of her concentration, cutting off her link to the surface. Like a ghost she abandoned Finn, settling back within her body. He would realise that she’d been on board the Ghtroc all along too. She just hoped he’d understand.

‘We should be helping the Alliance,’ she said to Ben. ‘Not chasing down Hux.’

‘And what if it’s all one and the same?’

His paranoia flashed across the bond. He grasped at theories only. None of them fully formed. But not so easy to dismiss, either.

‘Well we’re here now,’ she signed, taking control of the guns. ‘You fly. I’ll shoot.’

The battle was falling apart. The Alliance was breaking apart from formation and turning on each other. In the confusion of it all shots were going wild, but a stillness came over Ben. A focused togetherness that spread across to her.

_Breath_ , he said. _It’ll be alright_.

He lined them up, she took them down. Only the ones who got in their way. Half the Starfighters glided past, silent on the comms, holding off. They were siphon off into formation, taking heavy hits on either side from Alliance fighters and Order Zero TIEs alike.

‘That’s Poe out there,’ Rey realised. Only he could have been flying that recklessly, ducking and weaving and drawing fire off the rest of them as they tried to extract. It also had the side effect of drawing heat off the Ghtroc.

‘Now’s our chance,’ Ben said, clear space opening up in front of them. It was all smooth sailing ahead up towards the underbelly of the enormous dreadnaught. But Rey couldn’t let it happen like this.

‘He’s taking fire,’ she argued, ‘They need our help—’

Ben slammed his fist on the dash. ‘Would you _stop for one—’_

Rey reached out with her hands to the ether and wrenched the ship around, overriding Ben’s steering. He ripped his hands from the helm and stood up. She felt him reaching too, his power trying to override hers. He was rusty, out of practise, but the ship groaned, lurching to a stop, pulling dangerously between two directions.

‘You’ll tear the bloody ship apart,’ Rey yelled at him. He turned on her, his eyes flashing dangerously.

‘You can _never_ be on my side,’ he said, knowing their fight was already won. She overcame him.

The effect of that was like winding up a catapult, and slashing the rope. The pressure released was _explosive_. She lunged for the seat in time, but Ben was thrown clean off his feet. He cracked into the control panel, and the ship lurched headlong into the battle.

He glared up at her through his dark hair. She shrugged. He pulled himself up and seized hold of the guns.

‘Fine,’ he glowered. ‘I need to shoot _something_.’

He picked off TIEs with a ferocity that make Rey’s hairs stand on end. Seeing him wild like this—enraged—she could feel him tipping dangerously off balance. The casualties for now, at least, were on the other side.

It was a slaughter.

‘That’s enough,’ Rey said finally. They’d struck a blow, cut a clear path.

He kept firing.

_Ben,_ she reached for him _. Enough._ But even still.

She touched his shoulder. It was like it finally broke the spell, pulling him back to himself. He blinked, sobering to himself. She felt his shame.

_‘_ Come on,’ she said. ‘Now we do your bit. _’_

She reached out and surfed over the shell hull of the Ghtroc, acquainting herself with its every ridge. They were going to have to make a dash for it, now, and they’d be needing shielding. As she did, from behind them there came a soft, sad, _ultimate_ fizz. The rattling Rey had become so used to rattled it’s last.

_The Hyperdrive,_ she realised. It had given out finally, succumbing to a death beyond even what Ben could do for it. _And_ , Rey realised, _marooning us in real space_. Gone were her last feeble hopes of convincing Ben to jump somewhere far from Alliance and Order Zero. She could feel the smarting victory on his end. His thoughtless insufferable smugness at getting his way, which far outshined any sensible anxiety at being stranded in Alliance space.

‘You’re impossible,’ she snapped.

‘But still you always try,’ he replied.

***

 

‘And here he is after all these years,’ the former General Hux called down from his command chair, which he took like a throne. ‘Judge and executioner.’

It had taken hours of fighting to get to the deck, but nothing had ever been able to hold back Ben and Rey when they fought back to back. They stood side by side, slick with their own sweat and flecked with blood, looking up at the final stairs to the summit.

Hux watched them come with helpless resignation. He’d barricaded himself in and now everyone else was dead or surrendered. 

‘The bogeyman of warlords, calling yourself Ben Solo,’ he continued, ‘like it could ever erase all the things you’ve done.’

Ben stepped forward and put his hand on Rey’s shoulder, pushing her back when she tried to follow. She watched him limp ahead, clutching his re-opened hip, determination to do what he’d come so far to do.

Hux grinned nastily, though pale with fear. ‘Just like killing me won’t,’ he trembled.

Ben raised his hand to the air and clenched around Hux, wrenching him forward like a ragdoll from his seat onto his knees. Forcing him to kneel.

‘What will you change?’ Hux hissed, his voice higher and panicked now as Ben came down the long red walk of carpet. ‘You can’t stop what is the nature of the universe. What has happened has happened. What will happen _will_ happen.’

‘Perhaps,’ Ben admitted, coming a stop standing over him. He cracked his lightsabre into life. ‘Let’s find out.’

Hux spat at him.

‘You’d still kill a defenceless man.’

‘Interesting choice of word from a war criminal,’ Ben considered. ‘ _Defenceless_. And so, to retribution.’

He raised his lightsabre, its light casting Hux a prophetic red of blood. The general closed his eyes and readied for the fell.

Ben hesitated. Rey felt him grasping back at her.

_Isn’t this when you come in_ a _nd get in the way like usual?_

To many seconds had passed. Hux opened his eyes, and slowly his expression pulled into a smirk.

‘So you _have_ been neutered,’ he said. ‘Even more pathetic in person than what I’d heard.’

_What’s changed,_ Rey channelled to Ben. He tightened his grip on his sabre with both hands. He was a mess of contradictory feelings, a maelstrom of firing thoughts.

He sheathed his lightsabre.

_I don’t know_ , he answered. _Something in me says… Not Yet_. _That this is bigger than Hux._ ‘I want answers,’ he finally fixed upon, out loud.

‘I thought you didn’t involve yourself in Alliance matters,’ Rey said. ‘Wasn’t it you who’s meant to smite and all of that fire and brimstone?’

She could feel him growing surly and resentful, admitting to himself that it was time to eat those words. He turned his back on Hux, and fixed on her instead. His dark eyes were intense, his gaze now defiant. Resolute.

‘You’re involved in this,’ he said to her. _So I am too._

Rey felt it through her whole body. I’m on your side, he may as well have said, though that may have been asking too much of his pride. He’d stood here on the cusp of his ultimate goal, turned away from it. Pledged to her instead.

_So what now?_ They asked each other _._

_I guess we wait and see,_ Ben thought, still crushing Hux down on his knees. _They’ll be here soon enough._ Rey could feel it too. The enormous mass of the Alliance Cruiser docking at the dreadnaught.

 

The path had already been cut for the Alliance.

Shan and her special corps arrived on the deck with time. She, like the rest of them, was dressed in full stealth armour. Her prototype suit set her apart from the rest—Blood Red where the rest were black. That was the only means by which Rey recognised her, for her face was concealed from above the lips by her Infrared helmet.

‘I see my work’s already done,’ Shan said, talking in an assessment of Hux on his knees and Ben Solo standing shoulder to shoulder with Rey. Something sparked on Ben’s side of the bond. _Déjà vu_ , he dismissed.

Shan gave the signal to her corps. The filed in, forming a parameter and setting their guns on Hux. Setting their guns on Ben and Rey. Ben tensed beside her, fitting his back to hers and drawing his sabre.

_No,_ she urged him. _I know these soldiers._ She’s worked with many of them before. She could feel in them the confusion. _Why_ , they thought, even as they obeyed. She felt the strain on them of having already firing on their own today. They’d do it again— but they were afraid to. They knew all what Rey could do, but they’d had nightmares about Kylo Ren.

Rey put up her hands slowly. Ben sheathed his lightsabre and dropped it to the floor, kicking it to the nearest soldier. He raised his hands, with her.

‘Necessary precautions, I assume councillor,’ Rey said.

‘Naturally,’ Shan answered. She stopped to stand before Hux. ‘Let him stand.’

Ben released his hold at last. 

‘General Hux of Order Zero you will be escorted off this vessel and into the custody of the Uniting Alliance where we will discuss your surrender.’

‘Lead on,’ he said, letting his hands be cuffed. He slammed his shoulder into Ben as he passed, his smug smile almost insufferable. Almost. Ben strained against himself like an arrow pulled taught on a bow, every muscle in his body wound.

‘Kylo Ren,’ Shan said, turning on him. ‘I’m wiser than to trust in your appearance of compliance. You’ll remain imprisoned on this vessel with twenty surface cannons locked on you while we judge you for war crimes.’

He wasn’t threatened. ‘And how do you expect you’ll enforce that,’ he said.

Shan reached up and released the catch on her helmet, pulling it off. Ben’s eyes fell on her face. Something in his eyes sparked with recognition. He glanced to Rey with a question on his face, but withheld. As though he wanted see what she already knew.

Shan shifted her gaze from Ben. 

‘That's down to you,' she said to Rey. ‘You stand with the Alliance and renounce your loyalties to Kylo Ren, or you share his judgement.’

Both pairs of eyes were fixed on her.

‘Why do you think I assisted him onto this dreadnaught in the first place,’ Rey answered.

She felt Ben go very still. She felt him stare down at her.

She couldn’t stop now. It had to be done, and she had to make it real.

She turned to him.

‘You finally gave me the chance the Alliance has been waiting for.’

His _face_.

‘Did you really think I could ever forgive you?’ she said softly. Real tears welled in her eyes. ‘For everything you’ve done?’

He reeled. Anguish stripped him bare in a second. He stared down into her face, blinking back the pain, the confusion. He’d never looked so lost. So like a boy. So…

Defeated. ~~~~

‘I shouldn’t have hoped.’ His voice came raw. The muscles in his throat straining.

She couldn’t breathe, his pain was crushing her from across the bond, too much for just one vessel to contain alone.

‘Go,’ he said, turning away. ‘I won’t fight you.’

She’d needed that reaction. She’d needed it to look real, _be real,_ if she was going to stand the best chance at getting him off this ship. She reached for him as she followed Shan. _It’s an act_ , she’d tell him. She had to be an insider. She reached. And reached.

No answer. Nothing.

Nothing but a wound where Ben Solo had been. The bond, broken.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank-you everyone for reading and for a really warm reception of chapter one, really loved hearing from you all in the comments. Again, please feel free to let me know any thoughts/feels this time round!!
> 
> I'll be updating weekly around midday EST time on Mondays so stay tuned for more soft sith heartbreak and backseat spaceship flying~


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Boss music plays* Can Rey defeat evil & save the (prince)ss??

# III

 

She was in withdrawal.

It took all her strength to keep walking as she crossed into the Alliance carrier. The physical shock of being torn from him worsened with every step. She clenched her fists to stop them shaking, bit down to stop her teeth chattering. The pain roiling in her core and temples made the whole world spin and bile rise.

The carrier detached and thrusted off into space, stretching wider an already unbridgeable distance between her and Ben.

‘The dreadnaught is frozen,’ she heard reported to Shan. ‘No vessels can dock or vacate until you give the order Ma’am.’

Even if Rey stole a ship, how could she board now? She didn’t have much more time to contemplate it. She passed out.

 *

 

Rey woke in a sterile room after untold hours. Someone stood over her. The calm face of Shan looked down her nose.

‘Let’s cut the games, Jedi,’ she said. ‘You’re going to tell me where on Saaltn Leia and her resistance have fled.’

Rey pushed herself up from the bed and took quick stock of her surroundings. They were in a small room, a cell perhaps, but she could sense the door was unlocked. She slid her eyes back to Shan.

‘I’m not going to tell you anyth—‘

It was like the two hemispheres of her skull were rendered apart and Shan reached in.

‘Ah,’ the woman said slowly. ‘You have no idea. You weren’t in on that contingency.’

She held her hand an inch from Rey’s face, slowly turning it. Forcing Rey from the bed and down to her knees.

‘They left you behind.’

_What is this?_ This power. Rey was trying to fight her out but she— couldn’t—

Half her strength was gone.

_You’re wondering now_ , Shan said from within her. _Did they suspect you were compromised all along?_  

That last encounter with Finn was boiling back up and Rey couldn’t stop Shan from seeing. _I trust you Rey_ , he’d said.

‘Did he?’ Shan asked. ‘Should he have? When all this time you’d been funnelling Alliance intelligence to Kylo Ren?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You thought they’d understand that it’s not so black and white. It’s always so disappointing, isn’t it?’

Shan released her. Rey slumped forward on the floor.

‘Ben recognised you,’ Rey heaved, her voice sounding ragged with pain. That’s what had sparked in his eyes on the dreadnaught the moment Shan had revealed her face. ‘You’re a—’

Shan nodded. ‘They called me Ahn Ren once.’

Another of his order. A Knight of Ren, all along. Just another Alliance secret Rey hadn’t been in on? No, Rey doubted anyone had been prepared for this.

‘Doubtless, Kylo thought you were already working to my agenda,’ Ahn Ren said. ‘You couldn’t have ripped his heart out better, really. You thought he’d have had more faith in you, after all this time. And now you’ve been forsaken by your comrades. You’d hoped they’d understand you, the way you’d stared into the darkness and understood Kylo Ren. Hoping so much, in vain.’

Rey looked away from Ahn Ren’s expression of pity. Everthing she was feeling now—

Ahn Ren wasn’t immune to it. In her face was sympathy. It told its own story.

 ‘You don’t have to be alone,’ Ahn said, almost gently. ‘I know how it feels too. Torn down the middle, pulled between two sides. There could be a future for you still. For you and Kylo.’

‘Stop calling him that,’ Rey said.

‘Things were better when the First Order gave stability. Look at the universe now. The aimless destruction. You’ve seen it yourself.’

Rey gritted her teeth. ‘The First Order were _genocides_.’

‘I never condoned that, even then,’ Ahn Ren said, ‘but we both know it’s more complex than that. You’ve seen this is not better. This is not balanced. When the First Order fractured, the universe fractured. I wish it could govern itself, but this is what it does. It needs custodians. Hands to shape it.’

‘It’s all been a set up,’ Rey realised, understanding now what Ben had suspected. ‘This was never about subjugating Order Zero. You’re in it with Hux together. This whole invasion was a ruse.’

Ahn Ren simply nodded. ‘He’s a monster,’ she admitted. ‘But I have use of those.’

‘If you think you’ll turn Ben again, you’re wrong,’ Rey said. ‘The dark side was never enough for him. The call to the light was always too strong.’

‘Yes, natural lightsiders,’ Ahn said. ‘They do exist.’ Her eyes swept over Rey thoughtfully. ‘As do the opposite. But one needn’t pick sides. Light, dark, or grey. It doesn’t matter to me. Only that we share a vision.’

She was an idealist. She truly believed this universe couldn’t hope for anything better than an Empire. A First Order. An Alliance of murderers. That _that_ was the natural state.

This wasn’t evil. Not the way evil might be expected. It was too recognisable. There was something about that that cut fear down to Rey’s very core.

‘I have to hope,’ Rey shook her head. ‘I have to believe in people being better. That this galaxy can have better. Ben renounced his order. Shan, you can.’

Ahn Ren sparked Kylo Ren’s lightsabre into life.

‘Not interested,’ she said looking at it, almost entranced. ‘Kylo Ren wielded the dark side for higher purpose. Ben Solo clings to his fears and serves himself only. He fritters away his years on a selfish and futile quest for redemption I’m sure even he loaths himself for. But I wonder whether Kylo Ren couldn’t find his way again? After all, you betrayed him. Isn’t it possible? Heart-broken, driven to desperation. Grasping for something familiar. Some reason in all this. He’s only human, after all.’

Rey lunged forward and clenched her fist. Ahn Ren’s body wrenched into the air, suspended by her throat, lightsabre clattering. It skittered across the floor and lurched into Rey’s hand.

Ahn dangled there, her feet an inch from the ground, her face growing red, swollen and ugly—her lips grasping voicelessly. Would she plea, if she could?

_How fast you resort to the dark,_ she said snaking within Rey’s mind. _What else can you already do?_

Rey recoiled. _Get out._

She slammed Ahn to the floor. Crushing her there.

_Your mind is wide open,_ Ahn pondered. _He burrowed in and made good use of you, but where is he now? Such an emptiness he’s left in you. You’re so desperate to be filled._

Rey ground her harder into the hanger concrete.

_Kylo Ren’s willing whore, perhaps? Craving him to slowly destroy you from the inside. To release you from yourself?_

_I could kill you now._

_Could you?_

The question hung yet unanswered. Rey held fast. She could finish it now. She could drag that voice from her head and crushed it forever in a second.

She held.

_He’d never have shown you the way,_ Ahn Ren said from within her _. Did you sense that? Kylo was no true sith_.

 

Ahn was fearless, even as she was ground into rock, her soft flesh yielding, the pressure suffocating her. There was no wild rage or fear or passion within her. There was only conviction as she was dying.

As she was _dying_.

_He would always fail and he knew it,_ this dying woman pressed _. Always too wavering. No conviction. He had to fight his every disposition, every natural instinct, warping himself over years, brutalising himself to master what comes now so instinctually to you._

_What is simply your nature_.

Rey dropped her hand.

Ahn Ren gasped in air, body spasming.

 She flopped over revealing one side of her face—a deep purple red. Pooling blood under skin. Her eyes, red with burst vessels.

Rey looked at what she’d done in horror. A moment of madness. She’d staggered on the precipice.

‘I’ve never wanted to destroy _,’_ she said through clenched teeth.

‘No, Grey Jedi,’ Ahn rasped aloud, staggering to her feet. ‘ _You_ want to protect.’

Rey felt that like a punch to the gut. That had all been a test. One she hadn’t failed.

‘You feel so much,’ Ahn said, slowly crossing the distance between them. ‘And it’s tearing you apart to do nothing and watch the world decay. You _don’t_ have faith in the slow workings of the Light. You can barely stand back and watch. I’ve seen you. I’ve felt it. You talk bravely of hope, but you _have_ no hope. You only fear. Fear what you’ll become if you give over, but still you feel it growing in you day by day.’

Rey felt the tears spilling down her face.

‘You have power to take the reins, Rey. To shape things yourself. The dark side can be a tool, but _you_ are the power. You could show Kylo Ren a different way to it. You could set him free. You could set yourself free. Lead yourselves by hope, child. Not fears.’

Rey drew a shuddering breath. ‘We may be similar,’ Rey conceded, her breath came in involuntary heaves, her voice a breaking shudder. ‘And you do make sense to me. But what you want at the end of it all is not enough.’ She gritted her teeth. ‘And I will never join you.’

‘Then understand I’ll kill you,’ Ahn said, ripping the lightsabre from Rey’s hand with such an unexpected strength of force it knocked her staggering back.

Ahn cracked the blade into light. ‘And then Ben Solo, after. If I must.’

Rey had nothing.

Nothing she could put between herself and that unstoppable blade. The Light gave her nothing. The Dark called. Promised. How long had she called on it without even realising? Hadn’t it always been there?

She could do nothing but spin out of the way, but the blade skidded the top of her bicep, hewing a chunk clean out.

She screamed in agony.

_Run_. Run from Ahn Ren. From herself. Blood misting behind her, her arm wrenching pain on every thunder of her feet— _Run_.

She felt terror. Wasn’t that normal? To not want to die? She’d felt that in Ben too. She could stand and fight. _I could have ended it already. Ben doesn’t want to die. Don’t let him._

_No, run_. She ran, following little sense of anything but to keep moving, all her years of survival on Jakku flooding back—of being powerless but still, persisting. The only instincts now that she trusted. _Run, Rey— Run_.

She skidded through the massive doors of the hanger. Doors rigged to slam behind her. Trapped.

Somewhere, beyond the thumping of her own heart, there was that low static hum.

Trapped— But not alone.

Down the end of the hanger, a red glow slid up over the metal of airships. Ahn Ren stepped out. There’d be no more running.

_You have no hope,_ Ahn’s words echoed in her mind _. You only fear. Fear what you’ll become if you give over._

Rey reached for the light. That place inside her she’d always felt there—that slow river, that heavy ancient current. Now she grasped on dry. She felt the chasm.

_Such an emptiness he’s left in you._

For how long had she been reaching the Light through him? How long had he been holding her back from darkness, neither of them even realising how far she’d already fallen?

_Ben—please—_

There came no answer from him.

Rey watched Ahn Ren approach, sabre in hand, and knew she couldn’t let it end today.

So be it.

Every hair on her skin stood on end, bridging a million tiny static ropes of crackling light as raw energy brimmed to life. Her every cell hummed with electricity. She felt the power rising within her, answering her call. Eager to be mastered.

She raised her hand, crackling with blue lightening.

Ready to kill.

 

A docked X-wing fired its laser cannons at full force.

 

It happened so fast. Ahn Ren whirled—crimson lightsword deflecting a hundred lazer beams, catacombing her in a spray of wild light. She launched herself into the air, free of gravity, sailing like a rocket that was hard to get a sight on, let alone penetrate though her force deflection.

_‘Rey!’_

She knew that voice, and suddenly something clicked into place. That instinct on Jakku—it had kept her alive despite every odd, because out there, Kylo Ren was rending a universe in two. She’ been the answer to his call. The light was with her then, when she’d had nothing. It was still with her now. She’d only forgotten the sound of it under the roar of a more obvious power. She’d forgotten how to have faith in what fell beyond her own two hands. To be part of the world, to let it happen.

_Run_ , it said. And she had. She did. To Finn’s commandeered Starfighter.

‘You can fly this thing, right?’ he shouted from the rear gunpit as she ran to the cockpit and closed the hatch.

‘Just keep her busy,’ Rey shouted back, powering up the fighter. An old Corellian VCX-Series. It was no Millennium Falcon—a short range auxiliary vessel only—but it had guns and it flew and it was going to blast their way clean out to space.

Rey kicked the engines into full force and wrenched down on rotator thrusters, propelling the ship into a spin. Finn’s shots went almost as wild as his shouting as Rey spun the thrusters in reverse and the ship slammed into a stop at a perfect One-eighty.

Rey looked down into Ahn Ren’s eyes as she came to a slow descent back to ground before the ship. Rey saw the exact moment it dawned on her. What was about to happen here.

_Now it’s your turn to run._

Ahn Ren turned and force-propelled herself through the air, seconds to be somewhere that put a steel trap between her and absolutely _nothing_.

‘Get us spaced, Finn,’ Rey shouted. He blasted them to freedom.

*

 

The Alliance carrier was too occupied by its major hull breach to give much pursuit. Some gunning, some clever flying, and they were in the clear, skipping deeper into Saaltn’s blue stratosphere to where the clouds concealed what visual signal jammers couldn’t.

Finn emerged in the pit, shaky with adrenaline, dark skin shining with sweat.

‘ _Groundwork_ ,’ he said punching the air and whooped. ‘ _That’s_ what we’ve been missing.’

He was wearing that old brown leather jacket Poe Dameron had given him all those years ago. It was like a blast from the past. It was bringing it all back.

Rey launched from the pit seat and propelled herself at him. He left out a soft winded _oof_ on impact. Squeezing him with all her desperate might probably wasn’t what he needed from that point but it’s what he got.

‘You saved me, Finn,’ she muffled into the leather. Maybe he wouldn’t ever know just how much, or what from.

He hugged her back, tight, careful of her cut arm. ‘No matter what, Rey, I got your back. Trust that.’

_I’m remembering to,_ she thought.

‘What happened on base?’ Rey asked.

‘Mutiny as you’ve probably already guessed,’ Finn said, stooping to the communications panel and rigging it up with a chip he pulled from his jacket chest pocket. ‘Leia was ready for it. Woman plans for everything, she even got my girls out. One rough day, right?’

The channel opened and comms crackled to life.

‘This is command,’ began the focused voice of Poe Dameron. ‘State your—’

‘Poe—’

’Woah—hey— _Finn_ ,’ his tone immediately lifted. ‘Glad to finally hear from you buddy, was getting kinda… edgy down here for a while there. What’s your status?’

‘We’re clear,’ Finn assured. ‘I got Rey. She had a run in with Councillor Shan _,_ who can _fly_ I might add.’

‘She’s a Knight of Ren,’ Rey jumped in. ‘This whole subjugation of Order Zero’s just stink. Shan’s working with Hux to—

‘Build a totalitarian empire,’ Leia’s voice crackled over the comms. ‘Get to my age and the conspiracies start to get a little predictable.’

Rey could picture her standing at Poe’s shoulder, waiting for any word of her son—

Though she’d say nothing.

‘Rey, hold up,’ Finn said as she surfed navigation and planned her course. He thrust a finger down towards world-side. ‘Base is that way.’

‘Ben’s still their prisoner,’ Rey said. ‘I’m not leaving him.’

Finn took a moment to digest that.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Have I got this right? We’re actually saving Kylo Ren?’

_We’re_ , he’d said. He was with her, no arguments.

‘Ben Solo,’ Rey corrected. ‘And not by talking about it.’ She leaned to comms. ‘Poe— Anyway we could bypass the lockdown on that dreadnaught?’

‘Inside job for sure. It’s locked _itself_ down,’ Poe said. ‘That can only be disabled internally from the control room. But if I recall these old First Order vessels right, they got a vulnerability you could slip through—I’m patching it through. Finn, buddy, you’re gonna love it.’

Finn pulled up the schematics. ‘The garbage shoot,’ he said dryly. ‘You’re kidding.’

Poe laughed. ‘Only hatch still opening and closing.’

‘Fantastic,’ Rey said, genuinely more ecstatic about wading through garbage than anyone really should have been. ‘And it looks close enough to the brig. Finn, just drop me off and be ready for our getaway.’

‘This is the stupidest thing we’ve done,’ Finn said. ‘So we’re the rebels again? Us against the universe, huh?’

Poe gave a whoop from the other end of the comms. ‘ _Just like old days.’_

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for reading once again and some really lovely comments on last weeks chapter, it's been so great hearing from people along the way, thank you for your support from the bottom of my heart~ 
> 
> Update next Monday midday EST time where we see what Ben's been up to in this time! Next week's episode on My Boyfriend's A Sith: emo space prince-ing intensifies + also explosions.


	4. Chapter 4

# IV

 

 

Rey was back on-board the Dreadnaught.

 Stealth became a new challenge when you smelled like bin juice. She closed her eyes and ran her consciousness up the ship, tunnelling through its warrens as she moved, anticipating anyone before they’d come within her stink radius. In the end, however, there was no way to access Central Control without making her presence violently known. She’d only just bypassed the ship’s lockdown in central control when the low volume of the comms pinned to her jacket crackled to life.

‘Ahh— We got a problem,’ Poe said.

Rey tensed. ‘How big a problem.’

‘About twenty cannons big. They’re…locked on and charging.’ Under his breath he murmured, ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Hux and Ahn Ren have the entire Alliance,’ Leia’s voice said slowly. ‘They’d sacrifice one fleet—If it means killing Rey and Ben both. It’s too good to pass up.’

Leia hesitated. Deliberating the awful choice. Rey knew, with an awful sickening turn, what the general was about to order.

‘Rey. Pull out.’

‘No,’ Rey said. ‘Not without Ben.’

The backlash over the comms was instant. Leia, Poe and Finn all at once. ‘ _Rey_ —’

‘—I’m _not_ leaving him. Poe, you’ve got air support. Shoot out the cannons.’

‘We shoot them out, Saaltn’s defenceless.’

‘It already is,’ Rey said. ‘It’s taken.’

Poe clarified. ‘I mean we’ve got a _chance_ right now. This chance to let Order Zero destroy themselves before this spreads further.’

‘Rey,’ Finn said. ‘Poe’s right. With their fleet down and you on our side, it might just level the field enough for us to take back the Alliance. We need you.’

‘ _None of you_ _understand_ —’ Rey cracked. ‘Without Ben, there is no balance—It wouldn’t turn out like you think. I’m… I’m _slipping_.’

The comms went silent. A new possibility, a hypothetical future was maybe flashing before their eyes. What Rey had long feared. She’d regained a semblance of balance today—just. She was so close to the abyss. If Ben died today. If they murdered him—

The rage. The vengeance.

That hole—that _tear_ within her that was already seeming to widen. She _knew_ it would do to her. Order Zero nor the Alliance combined would be the danger, then.

‘It’s both of us, or it’s neither,’ Rey breathed.

Silence.

‘Go to him,’ Leia conceded. ‘Poe—’

‘Mobilizing airstrike on cannons. Buy you time, Rey. Much as we can.’

‘And Finn—’ Rey begun, but he was already having none of it.

‘If you’re staying, I’m staying.’

‘Your girls—’ she said, and his rebuttal died on his lips. They needed a father. ‘I’ve lifted the lockdown,’ she reassured. ‘I can take a fighter off.’

There was a shaky exhale of breath over comms. ‘Rey—’ he hesitated, then sighed. ‘I trust you. Returning now to base. Good luck.’

 

 _Show me_ , she thought as she ran through the corridors _. Show me where I need to go._

She saw a door. She felt her way to it. She took to the control panel, ready to force an override. It slid open. Not even locked.

 

He was sitting cross legged on the floor, his back to her.

Just staring out at the stars.

 

What had she expected? Some torture chamber of elaborate force-resistant constraints, if such a thing even existed? Perhaps not, but certainly not… this.

‘I’ve been thinking about you,’ he said, his voice… strangely devoid. Tranquil, if tranquil could feel wrong. ‘How I never saw this coming.’

It so strange to see him but not to feel him. To have to wait on words to know. To not even see his face from which to glean some understanding. 

‘It’s strange,’ he said. ‘The moment the bond cut, I thought I’d feel—’

 _Empty_. The rift clawed inside her. Now he was so close she felt more torn that ever. It was almost unbearable.

‘Darkness,’ he finished. ‘Closing in on me. Taking me back.’

He got slowly to his knees and stood, turning his back to the galaxy, facing her. There was something different about him as his eyes settled on her. Something about his face—it was… _lifted_ was the wrong word.

She didn’t like that way he was looking at her. Like…She was an infection. But it wasn’t even with cold anger—nor loathing. She felt, somehow, that would have been better.

‘I thought all that darkness was mine,’ he said, looking at her with maybe just mild disappointment.

She shook her head under his accusing gaze.

‘It wasn’t, was it Rey?’

This was wrong. He was supposed to be angry. He was supposed to be needing her like she needed him. He wasn’t supposed to be… this. Calm. Detached. Like he felt nothing of the _everything_ she did. Like he wasn’t breaking apart after what she’d done.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ she said. ‘Haven’t you at least tried to escape? You haven’t even asked me why I’m here.’

He shrugged. ‘If I have a role in all this, I’ll know it.’

A theory was beginning to form. They’d been balancing each other for so long. She’d shared his darkness, he; her light. It had been so long now it was impossible to tell who’s was what. They’d grown, changed and adapted with that crutch in place. They didn’t know how to do it on their own. The light side was so unfamiliar to Ben after all his years in the dark, which Rey in turn had so little experience of. It was like being catapulted to far extremes.

The distant sounds of air battle fizzed over the comms. She heard Poe’s shout. ‘ _Woah_ watch your left side blue team—’

‘We don’t have time for this, Ben. This carrier could get blown out of the sky any moment.’

‘If it’s time.’

Rey grabbed him by his arms and shook him. ‘ _Ben_.’ She looked up into his face, searching for the man she recognized. ‘You _want_ to live. You’re not done here.’

Nothing.

‘There’s darkness in me,’ Rey admitted. ‘I’ve slipped a long way, I haven’t learned how to balance it on my own, not without you to weight me. But there’s a part of me that’s hanging on. It’s keeping me floating, Ben, at least for now. There has to be some…small part of you that’s—’

She grasped for the words.

‘ _Still a bit of a dick._ A part that’s saying _not yet.’_

‘I’ve spent my whole life holding onto everything so tight,’ he said hollowly. ‘Why? The universe goes on. Empires will rise and fall. Why is any of it for me to decide?’

‘Because you were right about Hux. You were right about the Alliance. You were _right_. Somethings need to be destroyed. Sometimes we have to shape things ourselves. Your own mother knew so too. If Leia hadn’t expected the worst in people, it’d already be over.’

A muscle slid in his jaw.

‘I’m tired of fighting,’ he said. ‘I’ve been fighting all my life, Rey. Just let this go.’

‘Get _spaced,’_ she yelled at him. ‘The entire resistance is down there fighting so I can get you off this ship. Leia’s down there laying everything on the line because without us—without _you_ and _me_ , _together_ —it’s over. They’re done.’

Again she saw his jaw clench again—just the smallest tell. She was getting to him. But not like he was getting to her. Why were they always like this? On opposite sides, even now?

She rubbed away her tears. They were too raw, too mortifying to have in front of him under such an empty gaze.

‘I can’t do it without you, Ben,’ she said, choking on the humiliation of it.

‘Ahn Ren sent you,’ he decided. ‘To turn me.’ He shook his head. ‘It won’t work. I’m stronger without you.’

 It slammed her. She couldn’t find up within herself. And presciently that was when Poe’s voice crackled out of the comms, too late.

‘ _Rey_ — _brace_ —!’

 

She reached for Ben Solo. She pulled his mouth down on hers.

 

Cannons hit starboard.

Her feet lost the ground—Her body was freefalling—

And something slammed into the back of her head.

*

 

She saw stars. Literal stars.

The entire Galaxy laid out before her, timeless. An infinity expanse. Through wet eyelashes she gazed out at all that nothing.

So empty. So empty that it would make just a tiny spec of _something_ seem so precious. So miraculous simply for being. Like a little girl marooned on a desert world, stomach roiling, crying while chewing barbed grass that cut her mouth.

 _There must be something_. _Something out there… in all that blackness… That’s worth it. That’s worth fighting for. Worth crawling for and failing for. Worth killing for. Worth dying for._

_*_

 

She came to.

There was wreckage. The heat of fire. The deafening sirens of evacuation. And, all around her the world seemed to float.

‘Rey—Rey _respond_. Pull _out_ ,’ Leia’s voice was coming through the comms. ‘You’ve done all you can. Another hit like that and it’ll start off the chain reaction. Rey _do you copy_? _Pull out_.’

She couldn’t speak with all the blood leaching out of her mouth. She watched it dripping to the floor like runny syrup, a red trail left behind through the corridors as they rushed by.

‘She copies,’ answered another voice instead. A deep voice. The voice of man, who when Leia had last heard speak, had been a boy.

Rey, with a thawing consciousness, located the warm sturdiness of arms and chest. She gazed up at Ben. At his dark eyes fixed forward, his brow set in determined concentration as he swept ahead for danger, ducking under crushed pylons and kicking down doors. Carrying her to the hanger bay.

Silence had fallen on the end of the comms.

There finally came an order. One, Rey knew, wasn’t only to her.

‘Get back to base.’ 

*

 

 

 

‘Aren’t you dead?’ Ben asked on the recovered Ghtroc as they plummeted from orbit down towards the world below. He wrinkled his nose. ‘You smell dead.’

Rey never thought she’d have been so happy to be insulted by Ben Solo.

‘Garbage shoot,’ she slurred, trying to push herself up from the floor and failing. ‘You could say it’s a… rubbish design.’

He didn’t smile—Frankly, he looked extremely stressed as he switched to autopilot and crouched down to her, stroking her bloody hair from her face. _Good_ , she thought, satisfied. She could see it flicking across his face—the knowledge that an entire fleet once under his command had possessed such a gaping vulnerability.

‘If only I’d known all along I had a weakness to scavengers,’ he considered.

He knew what he’d said. He knew exactly what he’d said, and so casually.

He tried to pass it off. Tried not to forget where to put his hands. After some seconds, he swallowed hard under his own cracking nerves and glanced at her. His eyes flickered down to her lips. Just once, for a second.

She recalled in a bright flash how it had felt—how soft and hot his mouth had been.

 ‘So yeah, wow, uh,’ filtered a bodiless voice into the escape pod. ‘H- _how_ long has that been going on?’ Poe’s voice transmitted obviously over the comms still pinned to Rey’s chest. Her guess was he’d meant to switch lines. ‘Did we—Did we all know about this?’

So the entire resistance fleet got all that.

Wonderful.

Ben reached over and crushed Rey’s comms in his hand. Fair enough. She could allow him a little healthy wrath right now, given the alternative.

‘You were utterly lobotomised,’ she said.

‘If you die I’m going shut it all out again,’ Ben warned her seriously. ‘So don’t make me.’

‘You were so quick to believe you’d been abandoned.’

‘Part of me will always expect it,’ he said.

‘Ben,’ with effort she closed her frail shaking hand on his. ‘I _had_ to play along.’

He nodded, staring down at her hand. He took it between his giant palms and warmed it.

_I’d have done the same._

It trickled back in so naturally, flowing across from him so normally that Rey didn’t even immediately notice. When she did she tried to chase it, but that was all she got—just a glimpse into his head and no more. But it was enough to know the wound was already healing.

 Proximity alarms squeaked out a sad sort of broken trumpet.

Ben stood and took back to the pilot’s seat, his face set to business once again. Overhead Rey saw a Starfighter zoom past and realised what it meant.

He’d formed up with the Rebels in battle, to aid their extraction.

He let go of the helm and clasped a gun in either hand.

‘Hold on to something,’ he called back as the Ghtroc flipped nauseatingly sideways. As an afterthought he added _mind your head_.

She swore back at him. Verbally, and loudly.

His hands were busy picking off Order Zero and Alliance defectors with crack shot precision, bulls-eying them from distances no one should have, and while he did the entire ship spun and sifted through the air in manoeuvres most pilots weren’t crazy enough to attempt, let alone the autopilot. At first Rey thought that must have been wildly malfunctioning before she realised it was Ben shifting their entire mass through the air through the power of the Force. Rey clutched on and stared up at the glass ceiling, watching the Starfighters rocketing overhead. They were formed up for retreat, and she knew it was over. The battle was done. Ben freed up the last of them and brought up the tail.

She had to admit. It was pretty fucking hot. Would that transmit over the bond?

 

The rebel base was at the bottom of an enormous chasm in the middle of a flowering desert. It was like a jagged mouth baring up at the sky where Order Zero orbited. Ben piloted his Ghtroc into its depths as if an old hand.

 Rey sort of loved and hated that of every ship he could have taken in the dreadnaught’s hanger, he’d not abandoned the old rust bucket. It was squeaking away, threatening to fall apart almost passive aggressively as though it resented having it’s sky-going ability taken so for granted. But it was something he was attached to. It had been his home for so many years. Ben who for a moment on the dreadnaught hadn’t cared for anything. That had scared her almost as much as Kylo Ren ever had.

He levelled out his descent. They were so deep that no light from the surface reached. Only a faint blue glow showed the way through a horizontal cavern to the hanger.

She felt the ship dock on the tarmac, and staggered up on her feet. She discovered she could walk, even if her body felt weak from the shoulders down and the world was spinning dangerously. Wordlessly Ben put his arm around her and hesitated, his hand hovering over the hatch control.

 _What will be out there,_ she felt him wonder. Rey leaned over and hit the release.

People stopped mid-task to watch Ben Solo help Rey take slow undignified steps down the ramp. He focused on her for as long as he could, and not at the woman who hung back from the forming crowd, her hand clutched over her heart.

Rey felt him flooding in, leaning on her as she leaned on him. _She’s smaller than he remembered. Her hair had gone grey. Her face was still soft. What had he expected? He couldn’t look her in the eye._

There was a stretcher and medical attention Rey could deny herself no longer, and then Finn was there, pushing through the crowd. There was this moment of—repulsion when he neared. Like Ben and Finn were opposite polarities forced together, memories of a bloody duel on Starkiller Base scarring to deep. Making them careful. Ben let Rey be taken, and Finn helped her across the floor. She watched, staying with Ben cosmically even as they wheeled her to medical.

She saw when Poe stepped in front of Leia, putting himself between her and the patricide that was Kylo Ren, hand on his blaster. Leia gave her commander a squeeze on his arm. He stepped reluctantly aside, letting Leia cross a slow distance to her son.

Ben dropped to his knees in front of her. Eyes to the ground.

She stared down at him as though not really believing this moment had come. Then she reached down, cupped his face between her hands, and raised it to her.

The way he looked up at her. His eyes were that of a lost boy, desperate. Desperate for absolution. Leia wiped away his tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ he could barely whisper.

‘Ben,’ she said, her voice thick with her years of sorrow. ‘You’ve come back, at last.’

She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around him.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks y'all for being so great to me and this fic so far, been loving hearing from you in the comments. Stay tuned next week for THE SEXY CHAPTER although I will also provide a link to a version with the sex omitted for any ace friends out there just here for the story!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very NSFW scene in this chap! I will put up a link to a version with the sex omitted for anyone who would prefer that but it's been hectic over here so I'll just need a little longer for that.
> 
> Still one chapter to go!

# V

 

 

 ‘Order Zero and the United Alliance's coalition cannot be allowed to strip this world or leave orbit while we have strength still,’ Leia said.

There had been a sleepless night and a tireless morning of frantic repair, and now the last rebellion—only one hundred left—gathered around a war table. Leia was backlit by the gold floodlights, the edges of her silver hair glowing like a halo.

‘We shot out the cannons,’ raised Finn, standing sentinel beside where Rey sat, her body still frail.

‘We shot out the cannons,’ Leia agreed. ‘And we don’t have time nor numbers to take back the UA base and make repairs.’

‘With respect, General, what option is left?’ Even Finn, usually upbeat, sounded dejected in the face of the situation. They all felt it.

‘Only a last resort,’ Leia said. ‘One last airstrike.’

She turned to Poe Dameron and laid her arm on his shoulder. He nodded to her, withdrew his hands from his jacket pockets, and took the floor.

‘The plan doesn’t change,’ he said, projecting the schematics for all to see. ‘We still hit that sweet spot and trigger a chain reaction that’ll take out the whole fleet, Ahn Ren’s Alliance Carrier too. The difference now is we gotta do it manually the old fashioned way. With a Starfighter, Skywalker style.’ He paused. ‘The chances of hitting it are slim. So I’m giving it my best shot.’

‘That’s suicide.’

The room turned to Ben Solo. He was hulking at the back of the crowd, his big arms crossed almost protectively. He hung there, away from everyone else, as though he could possibly make the nearly two metres of him inconspicuous.

No one could easily dismiss his performance in yesterday’s battle, nor his quiet hardworking manual labour in the hanger throughout the night. They waited on what he’d say.

 ‘Hitting on target would be a miracle enough,’ he said. ‘But even managing that, the chances of rigging the hyperdrive in time to jump the blast—’

‘—Are slim to none. Yeah.’ Poe said. He knew.

_A one-way trip._

Rey felt Finn tense next to her.

‘It’s the best chance we’ve got.’ Poe said. ‘Our last option.’

*

 

Rey was dreaming. She hadn’t meant to intrude on Finn and Poe when she watched them walk the surface patrol, shoulder to shoulder, alone together for what had always seemed to be an impossible occurrence in their normal day to day lives. One last night under the stars and the dusty desert moon. It was good company.

Poe stopped walking. He reached out and pulled Finn back by the arm, who turned in the swirling dust.

‘You know, this place kinda reminds me of Jakku,’ Poe said. ‘When we met. Hey, you remember that?’

‘Every bit,’ Finn said. He was grim faced. He couldn’t bring himself to force a smile like Poe did. He couldn’t spend these last moments insincerely. Silence lapsed between them. Poe sought for words, his eyes coming to settle on Finn’s jacket. ‘Hey,’ he laughed softly, indicating to it. It seemed to help him decide something.

‘Back when we were fighting the First Order, Finn, I never really had a moment to just stop and…’

Poe took hold of Finn’s shoulders, trying to cobble together the words. ‘And then, _she_ made you so happy. But I— before tomorrow, I guess I just want you to know, I…’

Poe took a breath.

‘I had dreams. Things just never really worked out that way.’

Finn didn’t have to hesitate. He pulled Poe in by his shirtfront and kissed him in the warm night.

‘ _Now_ you tell me,’ he breathed when they finally came up for air.

*

 

Rey woke with tears on her face, and reached out.

 _I’m here,_ Ben answered, only one room over in the sleeping quarters. She found him sitting at the foot of his bunk, staring at the floor. He was sullen, pale and receded into the dark. He opened his mouth to say something she could already sense she didn’t want to hear.

 ‘Kiss me,’ she said.

Whatever he’d been about to say died on his lips, his only sound a soft breathless exhale, like the air had been knocked flat out of him. He stood and shook his head.

‘I—’

He faltered.

She moved closer until she could feel the radiating warmth of his body an inch from hers. She looked up into his face. He was searching hers, his pupils dark and blown. He glanced to her lips and swallowed hard, losing some internal debate. Gently—gently, he took her face in both hands and brought his lips down on hers.

His mouth was soft like she remembered. His lips felt barely-there, ghosting. She could feel his eyelashes like butterflies on her skin. She felt her mouth part, her lips tremble on his as she pushed herself up against him, deeper. It had an instant effect. He made this…shuddering sigh, low in his throat. Suddenly his arms were around her—both of them careful around her jarred back. He was strong. She remembered that not from love, but war. He could have killed her like this in seconds—crushed her like it was nothing. They both knew it— they both felt that dormant power held so carefully back.

But this wasn’t Kylo Ren.

‘ _Ben_ ,’ she spoke against his soft lips. To feel wanted, desired like this—by him. It was intoxicating.

She pressed against the hard plains of his body, feeling the foreign largeness of him, the hard muscle under his skin where hers was soft. His chest heaved against her. She wondered what it would feel like to touch him under his clothes.

‘You can,’ he breathed, as if she’d voiced it. ‘If you want to.’

She crossed the link into his territory—the part of him she’d always let him keep to himself, and found he put up no resistance. He’d thought about this before. Many times before. She glimpsed herself mirrored through his eyes and learned of a power she’d never known she’d possessed. A power that slowed his thoughts, that sped his pulse. He’d _wanted_ her. He’d always wanted her, even when he’d hunted her. His own sick obsession that had grown, all too quickly, impossibly, into something real.

The very tip of his tongue stroked against her upper lip.

Somewhere deep and low within her, a need coaxed to life. He sensed it, and gently took her bottom lip between his teeth and sucked. Her need turned to an urgency. An ache that, unquestionably, needed to be filled, the way his body could fit to hers.

 _Have you ever made love_ , she asked him wordlessly across their bond.

 _No_ , he answered, a once guarded truth now openly entrusted. His mind was slowed and tangled up, racing with a mess of half hashed thoughts, and above it all—

Rey. Rey having what she wanted. Him giving her what she wanted. Whatever she wanted.

His hands kneaded her body through her clothes, sliding lower.

 _Take them off me,_ she channelled _._

 _Say it,_ he answered.

‘Ben,’ she breathed into his ear. ‘Strip me.’

Across the bond she felt him harden as though it was her own arousal. His big fingers took to the laces up her back, unpicking them and pulling her shoulders bare, which he pressed his lips to. He peeled her slowly, her robes sliding down to her waist. 

He stared. Just stared at her naked chest and face. Amazed.

 _You’re beautiful_.

She found the ties and clasps on him until he was bare too. His skin was like a tapestry of contradiction. Brutalised by war, there was no part of him that had escaped deep gashed scars. And yet, there was something so honest and human in his freckles, beauty spots, silvery faded stretchmarks across his hips. The pendulous proof of his arousal was both somehow obscene yet also strangely un-confronting. This was natural, his vulnerable human flesh that _wanted_ —his enormous chest heaving under her assessment. Then she was suddenly under him, his hot skin against hers, his large hands rounding over her breasts, his mouth exploring her while his thumbs hooked under her robes and dragging them down all the way. She was completely exposed under him, every part of her now for his taking. Nothing between them now, she felt his hot hard pressure glide against where she was slick.

Unexpected, unintended, he struck the perfect angle, sinking an inch deep.

They gasped against each other’s necks. Static flared wildly to life, jumping from his skin to hers. A little like pain. A little like pleasure. His control was going haywire, a flash of force lightning cracked out, striking the lamp and exploding it. He swallowed hard, eyes glazed as he tried to regain grips on himself, fighting his urge to push deeper but not willing to retreat either. She didn’t give him the chance. She pushed him onto his back, flopping into the pillows. Confusion crossed his face. Anxiety that he’d crossed an irrevocable line or had hurt her. He wasn’t expecting for her to climb over him and work her hand into his hair as she slowly, slowly took him for the first time. He was large, his unyielding hardness stretching her to her limit—there was a poetry in that. He’d tried so hard to be quiet up until then, but something in the way she gently forced his head back sent him over.

‘ _Rey_ ,’ he groaned from under her as she ran her lips over his throat, feeling him throbbing within her. She could hear the steel headboard groaning, cinching under his clenched fists. He was going to tear apart the room at this rate. Across the bond flashed his once so shamefully needed fantasy—

Her, with her hands clasped hard on his throat in the snow on Starkiller Base.

She closed her hand on him here, now, like he wanted. His hips bucked. His kiss-swollen lips parted in a voiceless prayer. She rubbed her body along his in a slow ride that make him shudder and jerk. She turned his face to the pillow and gently kissed over that long scar she’d cut into him that day.

‘You wanted me to stop you, even then,’ she breathed against his hair.

‘I wanted to make you mine,’ he gasped, kneading his fingers into her hips and pushing her down on him to take his full length, hard. He flinched with the pain of her weight on his hip—the wound that had barely begun to heal. She tried to pull back but he wrapped him arms around her and pulled her even tighter against him, staring up at her through his lashes as he mastered his pain.

 _Don’t stop_ , he channelled to her _._

‘We can wait—’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t wait any longer.’  

That raw desperation was impossible to deny. Rey wasn’t sure she could have stopped herself anyway.

She let him guide her hips, watching the extremes of his pain and pleasure take him over completely, feeling her own urgent pressure building within as she stretched around his every needing drive. Somehow, they both felt it: it shouldn’t have been any other way than this. Even in their love, there was violence. His scars and soft lips, her choking him and kissing him. Across the bond his sensations were hers, and hers; his. The feeling of being fucked and fucking was so blended that it couldn’t be said to whom which honour belonged, and hadn’t that always been at the very core of them?

He fucked them up the last frenzied sprint to the summit and pulled her mouth to his as they crashed over the pulsing edge together. Shuddering. Gasping. Crying out _together_ –

In perfect balance. Unity.

They crashed back on the bed, gasping into reality once more. Ben pulled her close, stroking her sweat-soaked hair from her face with shaking fingers. He was smiling, totally blissed out as he kissed her gently, weaving his fingers through hers.

Slowly, slowly they drifted off together into shared dreams.

*

 

Engines roared to life.

 

Rey jerked awake with a scream, sheets fisted in her clenched hands. She clutched her thumping heart, listening to only the soft hum and rattle of the base’s ventilation. She rolled to Ben.

The mattress beside her was cold.

 

Rey slammed the release on the hanger bay. There it was. That terrible scene she was sure she’d always remember. The hanger doors wide open to the black cavern beyond. The grinding scream of the Ghtroc’s engines as thrusters spluttered into life and it begun to surge forward.

 _Stop_. She was realising all too quickly what was happening.

_‘Stop!’_

The night watch arrived moments after her, and now the hanger was filling with the rest.

She left them all behind. She was running after him. On feet, while he had wings.

 _No_ , she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t yell. _No—Come back. Come back—_

Hadn’t this happened before? Her standing here, watching a vapour trail. The Ghtroc launched into flight, plunging up into darkness. And Rey, left behind.

 _‘_ Come back,’ she bellowed into the empty cavern above. But she knew now what she hadn’t as a child. There _was_ no coming back. Rey spun and looked at everyone. There had to be something—

Poe Dameron arrived in the hanger—Finn close in toe. Poe’s eyes went wide at the open doors, grasping for what this meant.

‘Solo’s flying the mission,’ he said.

Leia pushed through the crowd too, a shawl slipping from her shoulders as she fell to her knees.

‘There’s no hyperdrive,’ Rey gasped, breathlessly. In the commotion no one heard her. There was no functional hyper drive on his ship, and he’d known.

‘He’ll do it,’ Leia said. She closed her eyes. Her face was sorrow, mingled with pride. ‘He’ll hit it.’

 

Rey ran across the surface. The morning sun was rising over the desert. The world was blood red, and Ben Solo eclipsed three moons on his ascension.

He was rocketing to break atmosphere and she was panicking. She had to reach him. She had to—

_Ben—_

She could see it. The inside of the Ghtroc’s cockpit. She could see him. His hands were clenched on the helm, pulling up, the clouds slicing apart, the air thinning the sky darkening. His face was set. His eyes were on the horizon.

_Ben— Answer me._

If he heard her, he made no response.

She focused on him. She felt the air rushing all around, and pushed herself deeper, manifesting beside him.

‘Ben,’ she said, out loud. ‘Turn around. _Stop_.’

She thought she saw a single muscle slide in his face.

‘Answer me!’

He didn’t. The fleet was lined up in his sight. He was manoeuvring into position. He was doing everything the way it was meant to go. Careful. Precise. She could see the sweat forming on his brow. Was it only that he rubbed from his eyes?

‘You can’t—It can’t go this way,’ Rey gasped. ‘You can’t—’

 _You can’t_ _leave me_.

‘Rey,’ he said, at last. This moment. This moment where everything was still. His thumb resting on the trigger. Ready to take the shot.

‘You made it all worth it.’

 

He ripped out of her.

 

She opened her eyes on the surface of Saaltn, the sky above aflame. The explosions burned her eyes. The sky began to rain. Massive sunk battle ships tore apart and warped and disintegrated and they penetrated the heavens and plummeted to ground.

She couldn’t feel him.

Everyone around her was running. Taking cover. Shouting. So much shouting, so much roaring destruction, and yet the universe hadn’t felt so silent. Finn was shouting at her, she was distantly aware. She tried vainly to fight him off as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down behind a cluster of rocks.

‘I can’t feel him—Finn _, I can’t—’_

There was the sound of distant cheering under it all. The chants of victory. Finn wrapped his arms around her, holding her to his chest, just rocking her—while the whole world faded into numbness.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys all rock, I can't believe some of the sweet comments I've been getting. If you enjoyed the chap I'd love hearing from you! If you want to kill me for this chap, first of all- fair- second of all -please don't rage quit my fic- thirdly, ANGST WITH A HAPPY ENDING TAG??? SEE ALL Y'ALL NEXT WEEK FOR THE FINAL INSTALMENT.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry y'all had to wait a little longer this week AND on a cliffhanger!! 
> 
> (BTW, Shout out to Ash's iceskating friend, thank for reading!!)

# VI

 

A villain in life. A hero in death.

The news of Kylo Ren spread through the galaxy like light speed. Once, the universe’s most feared man, once it’s most hunted. No one knew what to make of it all now.

But then, no one had really known anything about Ben.

Rey ambled across the sand in the last rays of the day, her body still slowed and stiff from her injury on the sunken dreadnaught. That had been a week ago, today. She sweated tirelessly under the sun. Her skin scorched, but nothing could warm her. She worked alone, crossing the burning sand on her speeder bike out to the giant hunks of twisted metal. A week ago the sky had erupted volcanic, raining a new world of islands amongst a sand sea. She would search the whole planet if that’s what it took, if only for one fragment of Ghtroc.

Something to hold on to.

‘Rey,’ Poe waved her over late that night when she finally returned. He was the last still working as per usual, tinkering with his X-wing in the low light. Rey had wondered in the last week whether Poe and Finn weren’t conspiring to cross her path on regular shifts. She appreciated the care. She just couldn’t face anyone. She hoped he would understand as she b-lined for her bunk.

He called out after her. ‘You find any compactor coil spec’d to an X-Wing out there, flick one my way could you?’

She stopped. She couldn’t just say nothing.

‘Engine’s better without if you mod it right.’

‘Na,’ he said, clarifying. ‘It’s my Hyperdrive.’

Slowly, Rey turned and fixed on him.

‘Yeah,’ he said. He was running his hand along the ship as though soothing an injured animal. ‘Funny thing, right? You should get a look at this. The whole core of the motivator, ripped clean out. Doesn’t make much sense. Sabotage, I guess? Heh. Someone clearly must’ve thought my chances were better than I did.’

Rey dropped her wrench clattering to the floor.

 

She found Leia in central command. The hour was late, but the general was hounded on all sides by movers, shakers. For a moment, one dangerous moment, the thought of Rey having to fight through them threatened to be too much. She felt it boiling up inside her, an anguish that was too much to hold in that rattled the desks around her and immediately Leia snapped her head up from her work. She dismissed her attendants, mid-report. Only when they were gone did her eyes settle on Rey.

‘Did _you_ feel it?’ Rey demanded. She felt herself now shaking, afraid to know. Afraid to hope. _Did you feel him die?_

Leia held Rey’s eyes steadily. She needed no clarification.

‘No.’

***

 

Rey’s X-wing broke atmosphere.

A sun was setting on this face of forgotten blue world, casting the vast oceans a shimmering gold. There were no tiny galaxies shining where shadow fell on this uninhabited planet—no cities, no lights. Anyone below would see her, however. She’d rigged the engine to trail vapour on descent. Her ship caught the last glint of light and shone, trailing like a falling star.

The last Jedi reached out into the ether below.

 _Ben Solo,_ she knew, at last. _You’re here._

 

She found the Ghtroc. What remained.

Three years ago, it had vanished in that explosion above Saaltn. Now, here it lay in a meadow at the bottom of a crater, overgrown with wildflowers. It was half buried, nose driven to soil. It’s final resting place.

Rey dropped into the crater and ran her hand along the smooth blackened hull. Metal had melted off in the heat of an explosion—it was in a bad way.

The hatch was open, ripped clean off where it had melted over. Vines hung across an entry that hadn’t been used in a long time. She pushed through.

It was strange to stand on the Ghtroc and feel no vibration of life under her feet. It was as still and grounded as rock.

‘Ben?’ she called into the dark. Only the emptiness pressed back. She’d never expected otherwise.

She crept into the cockpit. Empty. What had she hoped? There was old blood on the floor, unmistakable. Everything was smashed up and crunched in from impact—the windshield shattered against a wall of dirt and roots, a window to its final grave.

She sank into the dusty co-pilot’s chair. She was at a loss. She’d been drawn here, but there was nothing left. No trace of him. Then her eyes fell on a softly blinking light on the control panel. Heart pounding, she swiped her hands over it, releasing a recording.

Nothing but static played out. It played continuous. If there had been anything left for her, it was now corrupted beyond retrieval. Rey listened for minutes at nothing but a dead ship. She sunk her head in her hands.

‘—know if this’ll ever be heard. Long-range transmitters are down.’

_His voice._

She closed her eyes and clutched the control panel so hard her fingers hurt. That deep voice she’d forgotten the sound of. His words were edged with pain—veiled— but she knew too him too well to miss it. She laid her hand down over a large faded bloody handprint on the wall.

‘You probably think I’m dead, Rey,’ he said. ‘Maybe that’s for the best. I severed our bond before impact. I just didn’t want you to feel it when I—’ he trailed off. _Died_. He’d laughed then softly at the irony. ‘But _then_ …’

More static.

‘You actually pulled it off,’ Rey breathed.

The recording jumped back in. ‘—Got so fried my navigation shorted out. Hyperdrive spat me out here. I don’t even know where _here_ is, but I think, maybe, this is how it was meant to play out... the purgatory I’ve earned at the end of it all. Perhaps. There could have been worse ends than growing old here, but…’ For a moment Rey thought it was the transition that had stalled. Then she realised it was him, hesitating. ‘For a moment in that rebel base,’ he continued heavily, ‘I’d fooled myself that maybe things might finally—’ His voice dropped out for real. ‘We were on the same side, and maybe I could _finally_ —’ More static.

Rey stood and thumped the panel, but thirty seconds more of corruption crackled out only, and then the recording reached its end.

Silence pressed back in. 

 _Come home_ , she finished. That’s what his last words were going to be. _That maybe I could finally come home._

She fought off her devastation as she realised that she was out of leads. At least… At least she had shreds of an answer to the question that had driven her search through the outer worlds for the past three years. This had finally confirmed her suspicions. He’d been marooned.

_Where are you?_

Aimlessly, she wandered to the open hatch and leaned in that doorway, gazing out into this uninhabited world. Ben had been right. Rey knew from experience that there were far worse places to crash-land. The sky was an exquisite sunny cerulean. Everything was green soft lush vegetation and craggy white-capped mountains. And as her eyes drifted over the distant dramatic rise of the land they came to rest on—

Unmistakably, orchestrated carefully in line of site—A tiny cabin, and a coil of smoke climbing to the atmosphere.

*

 

Her legs burned from climbing altitude but at no point did she stop to rest. On approach the little house became distinctively a mudbrick cottage, fashioned laboriously by hand and burrowed into the side of the hill, the roof a thatched grassy slope. Rey touched the cool bricks. They stirred with memory beneath her fingers, brought into being by a slow mediative care. The energy was calm, solid—both the wall, and the hands of its maker. One stone locked on another. Together, in their hundreds, they stood strong.

A house needed no locks in an uninhabited land and so Rey entered. The smoke had come from the chimney, beneath which crackled a fire and a pot simmering gently.

Footsteps on the landing. A shadow fell across the doorway. She felt the presence go still. He hesitated like she did.

‘Exile is a little cliché, don’t you think?’ Rey broke the silence.

She spun, and there he was—

A Wildman. Ruggedly bearded and in little else but torn shreds of trousers. He was sweating in the strong sun with a bundle of firewood over his strong shoulders, and his hair had grown past them, falling in waves.

It was so strange. She’d spent all her time thinking about the moment she’d find him. She’d never thought about the moment that would come immediately after. She grasped at what to say, after everything that had happened.

 _We could start with hello I suppose_ , he channelled to her, equally at a loss.

But in that moment, as they flooded the old dry riverbeds within each other, they knew there’d be no hello. There’d be no time for words at all. He threw down his bundle. She ran. His big arms lifted her and she felt her back slam against the wall as his mouth closed on hers.

*

 

She lay on him, stretched out on his warm large body, pressed skin to skin. He stroked his hand lazily down her back, fixing up at her with the absolutely fucked-out gaze she knew she returned.

‘You feel different,’ Rey said. ‘Calm.’ It was like there was a unity within him. Like what had been torn in him long ago had finally… She wouldn’t say healed. But it was a scar that no longer burned. The war in him was over.

‘It’s not been so bad for me here,’ he shrugged. ‘Away from everything. Just…’ he stroked her hair behind her ear. ‘Lonely.’

‘You missed me,’ she grinned. Part of her still felt the need to make him admit it out loud. She’d expected a little begrudging at least. He just broke into a smile.

 ‘Every single day.’

The sun filtered gently through the window onto the bed, deliciously warm on her skin. Outside the day was brilliant, the trees stirring gently in the breeze. She realised she hadn’t stopped like this for three years. She hadn’t really stopped like this, ever. To finally lay here in Ben’s arms without a care…

‘I’d quite like a holiday,’ she said. ‘Somewhere quiet. Somewhere just like this. It’s peaceful.’ _Like a honeymoon_ , she thought.

He nuzzled his face into her hair, kissing her ear.

‘Funny,’ he murmured into it. ‘I think I’m finally ready to go home.’

Rey closed her eyes. She’d never thought he’d ever be able to say those words to her.

She sat up and regarded him seriously. ‘We can’t ever agree, can we?’

He laughed softly, weighing it up.

‘Well,’ he acquiesced, throwing her down on the bed beneath him. ‘What’s one more month?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big sobby thank you to everyone who commented, kudos'd, bookmarked, recc'd, subscribed, and above all, read this fic. You all rock, and I'm sad we are now at the end! If anyone has any fic requests they wanna sound in the comments I'd be open to consider. 
> 
> Force be with y'all xox.


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